It's Warmer in the Basement
by mercurybard
Summary: Set during The World Will Break Your Heart. Part of the One Step Forward, Two Steps Backverse where Jenny went with Tommy and Kevin to meet Sal. To get to Tommy, they came through Jenny, and there's still Kevin to worry about.


Disclaimer: I don't own _The Black Donnellys_. I'm just mad in love with them. Title from a Cobra Starship song.

Sequel to 'One Step Forward', 'Two Steps Back', and 'I'll Be Here When It All Gets Weird'

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Jenny was shaking. Either from rage or from terror, she couldn't tell.

She was a little too distracted by the sudden _education_ she'd received tonight at the hands of Dokey Farrell to stop and analyze her feelings. Besides, she was Irish—she'd bottle everything up inside until it all exploded out in stereotypical fashion. But Jenny wasn't just Irish, she was black Irish, and if there was one thing the black Irish were good at, it was surviving. If she was going to survive, that meant she was going to have to learn.

One, that being a hostage blew. Dokey and his goon had grabbed her—right out of Huey's wake, no less—and dragged her down into the Firecracker's musty basement that always smelled like stale beer from the old kegs and wood shavings from Jimmy's abortive woodworking projects. And there was nothing she could do. That was what irked Jenny the most—that she'd gotten herself mixed up in what boiled down to a pissing contest and she didn't have the right equipment for it. And while her friends, her brothers…no, she thought as Kevin came up behind her and slid an arm over her shoulders, her _lovers_ fronted and fought, she was expected to stand on the sidelines.

Jenny wanted nothing more than to march right back down those stairs and tell Dokey and Tommy and all the other chauvinist pigs where to shove it. She also wanted to pee her pants at the thought of facing Dokey again—God knew, anyone in their right mind would be terrified of that axe-wielding maniac. So, the arm across her chest was holding her back as much as it was helping her hold her fear in.

She was also trying not to think about how this was the first time she and Kevin had touched since that night when everything went to Hell, and the three of them—her, Tommy, and Kevin— had tried to grab a little back on the floor not two feet from where she was standing now. If she closed her eyes, she could still feel the warm haze of skin and whiskey.

In all fairness, Jenny decided, Tommy wasn't being a pig—he was just being Tommy, trying to protect everyone. Which was why she and Kevin were up here, while he and Jimmy were downstairs…and Jenny wondered if she was the only one to see the similarities: Tommy and Jimmy, Huey and Dokey.

She wondered if Huey had seen it too.

"I hate this," Kevin murmured into her ear. "This waiting shit."

"So do I."

"What do we do?"

It was surreal. Jimmy could very well be getting his leg chopped off just under their feet, and nobody would notice. There could be men bleeding to death downstairs, and people would just keeping drinking their beer (and she really didn't want to know how Tommy and Kevin had acquired it) and eating their sandwiches. It made her want to scream. Instead, she took the plastic cup of beer Kevin handed her.

Samson the delivery boy was watching her, Jenny realized as she looked over the rim of her glass. The way he'd acted today when he came in with the day's bread…it made her think that he might be sweet on her. The expression on his face certainly wasn't a happy one as Kevin looped his other arm possessively around her waist. "Just what I need," she muttered into her beer, then licked some dried foam off the lip of her cup. Yep—Samson's eyes definitely followed her tongue. It made her feel dirty.

And she wasn't sure how she felt when Kevin nuzzled his face into the crook of her neck and pressed a kiss right below her earlobe. Because it was _Kevin_. She'd never thought about him that way. In any way, really. He was just Kevin Donnelly—something between a brother and a friend and a nuisance who'd once stolen her My Little Pony underwear and run down the street with them on his head. There was still something innocent and almost childish about him as if growing up in Tommy's shadow had protected him from some of the harsher parts of life.

So that was why she shrugged out of his embrace. "Kevin…no…"

"Why not? What'd I do wrong?"

It was like she'd just kicked a puppy, and Jenny suddenly had a hard time meeting those pleading eyes. But then, Tommy and Jimmy came up the stairs with Dokey and his goons behind them, and she turned and threw herself at them, snarling at Dokey and making sure that Tommy was untouched, unharmed.

It wasn't until Tommy pressed a kiss into her hair that she realized what she might have just done to Kevin. It was just so instinctual—to go to his brother like this. Forever, it had been Tommy and Jenny, Jenny and Tommy, and she wasn't sure how they were going to fit Kevin into that equation. She wasn't sure at all.


End file.
